theraineysisters knitting and so much more

I made two of these in identical colors for my girls.  Same color, no drama!  Quick and fun to make: Easy Granny Christmas Bauble.

It is crocheted, but I suspect there are a few crocheters lurking out there!!

Tortured title, for sure!  My latest FO was a challenging, fun knit!  It is the Snowflake Vest, and it involved dreaded intarsia.  Ugh!

The yarn is Sandnes Garn Kos, a blown yarn.  I know you want to see the inside:

Dozens and dozens of ends.  But that is the price you pay for knitting intarsia.    I love it.  It’s cute and cozy and Christmasy.  I hope all of you are almost ready for the holidays, because the clock is ticking!!

PS to Lisa and others: Blown yarn is actually a knitted tube (like i-cord) that is filled with wool fluff.  Examples are Luft, Snefnug, and Cantata.  The theory is less pilling, but I’m not sure that’s always true.  It is nice to knit with, and joins well if you know how.  I’ve used this type of yarn on several projects.

PS2 to Pam: I was afraid someone would ask me that!  Basically, you use a tapestry needle to thread one end through the other for several inches.  It’s hard to describe the final step, but this Belfair project has pictures that kind of show what I do.

The holiday bug has hit, but only on tiny knitting, and nothing to be gifted!  I stumbled on this next little design on Faceb00k and bought the pattern on Etsy.  I prefer to buy on Ravelry so the pattern is in my library.  The pattern is on Ravelry, but I did not know it’s full name until I bought it: Ice Crystal Snowflake Ornament.

ETA: I heard from the designer that she ONLY sells her patterns on Ravelry and that someone was fraudulently selling a stolen copy on Etsy.  Please use the above Ravelry link if you are interested in making this snowflake!

I used Classic Elite Fresco in Parchment from stash.  This is a fussy knit.  It didn’t help that KNITTERS CAN’T COUNT!!  You do a Judy’s Magic Cast on.  Six sections of 26 sts each.  You add markers after every 26 sts, which I counted.  BUT, I had SEVEN POINTS in my snowflake!  Argh!!  I didn’t realize it until I was trying to put the sts on dpns: 2 points per needle…so why do I have an extra section??!!??  I was so mad at myself, as this is a physically challenging item to knit.

I did stuff it lightly and I also put in three bamboo skewers from point to point to make it stiffer.  ETA: You must read Gretchen’s comment!!

My other mini-project is a Candy Cane.  I had seen a pattern that had the stripes going across the cane, not wrapped around.  I thought, that’s just wrong!  So, I experimented and came up with this:

The trick is to cast on 5 sts, but knit 3 white then 3 red.  It creates the spiral effect.  I wrote it all out on the project page.  My knitting looks horrible, but does it really matter?  I think not!

It’s the holiday season!!  I am not doing much in the way of holiday knitting this year, but this little project sucked me right in!  It is called Ball-ble, and it looks like tiny skeins of yarn that you hang on the tree.  These knit up quickly in fingering weight yarn.  I haven’t tried it, but larger yarn would yield bigger skeins.  Instead of hanging these, they could be cute in a bowl.

I printed out my labels and then laminated them (I love my laminator!!).  The labels hide the transition area.  These start in the middle and work toward the ends.  Then they are stuffed.